Rove’s Last Line of Defense

WASHINGTON (AP) April 27 — The only new issue in the CIA leak investigation known to involve Rove is a contact that his lawyer, Robert Luskin, had with Time magazine reporter Viveca Novak.

The contact is important because during it, the Time reporter told Luskin that Rove might have disclosed Plame’s CIA status in 2003 to another Time reporter, Matt Cooper.

The Luskin-Novak conversation occurred many months before Rove belatedly revealed to the prosecutor that he had spoken with Cooper. Rove says that he had forgotten about his conversation with Cooper. Rove’s legal problems stem from the fact that it was more than a year into the CIA leak investigation before he revealed the Cooper conversation.

One legal expert, Washington lawyer Stanley Brand, says that Rove’s latest grand jury appearance is an ominous sign for the White House aide rather than an indication that the investigation is coming to an end.

“I don’t think you need to drag a guy before a grand jury to wrap up,” said Brand. “Rove is testifying in an investigation in which a White House aide has already been indicted for lying.” Brand was general counsel to the House under Democratic Speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill Jr. from 1976 to 1983.

Rove’s latest trip to the grand jury leaves his fate in the Plame leak case as mysterious as ever.

John Bolton – Scooter Libby – Andrew Card – Karl Rove – Scott McClellan – ??

Remember the DOJ attention given to the Rome link of false intelligence on the Niger yellow-cake acquisition by Saddam Hussein.

● Glengarry Glen Rove ◊ by SusanHu

To keep any date with a person, sure she would have kept it in her agenda, as would Bob Luskin, as these weren’t four or five meetings by chance at the same place —

We’d occasionally meet for a drink – he didn’t like having lunch – at Café Deluxe on Wisconsin Avenue, near the National Cathedral and on my route home. In October 2003, as we each made our way through a glass of wine, he asked me what I was working on. I told him I was trying to get a handle on the Valerie Plame leak investigation. “Well,” he said, “You’re sitting next to Karl Rove’s lawyer.” I was genuinely surprised, since Luskin’s liberal sympathies were no secret …


Robert Luskin with his high-profile client:
"Karl didn't do anything wrong." (AP)

Viveca Novak Told Patrick Fitzgerald …